Department of Mysteries
by Gibsos
Summary: Cassanova Eve Morency, born paraplegic, was turned out of home by a hateful mother and left to deal with war events, from the death of the Potters to the final battle, and a wizarding world not used to people anything short of perfect. Not a slash. *Permanent Hiatus*
1. Chapter 1

_**The Daily Prophet**_

**-Family Notices**

_Article by Sienna Caine_

--_Daughter Cassanova Eve Morency was born today of parents Cassiopeia and Leo Morency. Cassanova was born pre-mature (ten weeks) and is in critical condition. She was born paraplegic (paralysed from the waist down), her lungs were not fully developed, and she has white hair. The healers do not believe she will make it through the night. If she does, she will immediately be sent home, as healers say there isn't much they can do for her, and so she can spend her remaining time with her parents and older brother, Cepheus. Healers say it will be a miracle if she makes it through the next week._

It's a wonderful life, eh?

Cassanova, or Nova as she preferred to be called later on, did indeed make it through the night. The healers said it was a miracle when she made it to a year old in stable condition. The hospital provided her with a wheel chair, which came in handy later, when she was old enough to reach the wheels.

Nova had an older brother, Cepheus, who was a Squibb. Cassiopeia, a pure blood witch, and cousin of Mrs Black, was a die-hard pureblood. No Squibb's for her, or cripples for that matter. But she needed someone to continue the family line, unfortunately there was no known cure for being a Squibb, which led Cassiopeia to send Nova to an experimental medical institution when she was three, and keep hoping that one day Cepheus would just come out and say it was a practical joke.

Cassiopeia gave her permission to the institution to do whatever experiments they wanted on her daughter, so long as they 'fixed her,' she said. Meaning making Nova able to walk, of course.

None of the experiments to make her walk ever worked, however some of them were very dangerous and could have killed her.

Then when she was five, and still at the institution, something happened which made her life harder then it already was. She was back in critical condition from an experiment gone wrong, when the institution got a letter from Cassiopeia. She had just given birth to a baby girl, named Andromeda.

Cassiopeia was an awful woman, and apparently as heartless as she seemed, because despite knowing her other daughter was in critical condition she told the institution that she would not be paying for the experiments to make her daughter walk any longer, so then the institution could not use Nova anymore, and sent her home, without being able to help stabilize her.

Cassiopeia, however, had finally gotten a successful heir out of her new daughter, who had nothing wrong with her. So Nova and Cepheus were kicked out, and would have died on the streets but for their Aunt Lucinda, who had gotten shunned from the family years ago for her role as a muggle rights activist.

Years passed at Aunt Lucinda's house, she had gotten a Healer in to stabilize Nova, who had gotten a new wheel chair. It was a very convenient wheelchair, unless muggles were around, because Aunt Lucinda had put in a few special features.

This wheel chair could be controlled normally or by joystick, there were two of them on the arm of Novas' chair. One controlled direction and speed, the other was for one of the chairs special features. After going to several places that Nova could not get into due to her chair, Aunt Lucinda made sure this chair could fly.

There were only two other features, one was that it, and the person in it, could go through walls, so Nova got access to places muggles also went without breaking wizard law by flying through the door in front of the Muggles.

The other one, was that, after a few horrible muggle children, the chair was modified to shock anyone who kicked it. It was _not _a pleasant experience for the kicker who, more often then not, went running after their mother crying about the mean girl who had electrocuted them.

Nova made it past the healers predicted year, then the five years, then ten, until they finally admitted that there was little danger of her dying from being born in such a bad condition anymore. She made it through Hogwarts, with barely more then the average number of trips to the Hospital Wing, though during the winter she found it harder to breathe because of the cold weather.

At fourteen years old, right before her fourth year, she got tired of the looks she got from having completely white hair, so she dyed it pitch black. Except for her bangs, which she kept white, so her friends would still recognize her.

After Hogwarts, Nova got an internship in the Department of Mysteries, the department she had been aiming to get in since her third year. Aunt Lucinda, who worked in the Rights for Magical Creatures Department, had a friend who was an Unspeakable (a worker in the Department of Mysteries), this friend owed Aunt Lucinda a favour, so he talked to the department head to get Nova an internship there, under the understanding that she wouldn't do any atrocities and make him look bad for recommending her.

"This door is always kept locked. Always. Only the department head knows how to get in. In this room, is a force that is both more terrible then death, and more wonderful then human intelligence, or the forces of nature, and any number of other things. It is perhaps one of the most mysterious things we study here, it's a power that everyone - except the most horribly self-mutilated - posses. And at the risk of sounding terribly corny and completely ruining my little speech, I will just say that it is the power that muggles have associated with the heart all these years."

It was orientation for the new interns. Nova was one of them, another was a middle aged man with greying hair and a humpback, the other one was a woman slightly younger then him with a heart shaped face and curly red hair. The assistant to the head of the Department of Mysteries was leading the interns around the Department, giving them a tour. Her name was Ms Chambers. She had one blind eye, muggle tattoos occupying almost all her visible skin, black and purple hair, and an eccentric behaviour.

They were in the room that immediately followed the door entering the Department of Mysteries. When the three interns had entered, alone, to find that the room spun around, the flames from the candles on the wall burning their retinas, and effectively making sure they could never find their way out, well, they had been nervous to say the least. Then, enter Ms Chambers. The room she had come from was an eerie blue-ish colour, and it was sort of... glittering, but before anyone could really see what was in there, the door had been closed.

"The rest of the rooms, you will get a less in-depth introduction to," she continued, "but we think it best to be more specific about the locked room, to get rid of any curiosity about it. Only the very highly ranked Unspeakables ever go in that room. All the other rooms, you will lean about in time, provided you don't get fired too quickly." said Ms Chambers with a half-smile as she led them to another door. The wall had spun once again when Ms Chambers had entered the room, it didn't seem to matter to her which door they went through.

The room they entered looked like an amphitheatre and the other interns and Ms Chambers walked over the benches toward the middle of the room, Nova stayed on the top landing, even with her wheelchairs flight mechanism it wouldn't be easy to balance on one of those stairs.

"This is the veil room." and Ms Chambers left it at that. It was easy to see why it was called that, as there was an ancient looking arch in the middle of the room with a ripped black veil hanging in it. There was a strange feeling in the room, Nova decided, as the others grouped around the veil. She could hear a sort of... whispering in it. She realized it was whispering just as the red headed intern asked:

"Whose doing that? Stop it, it's creepy."

"It's the veil." said Ms Chambers shortly.

There were no doors leading off from that room, except the one back to the entrance room, so they went back through there. The circular wall spun once again, Nova closed her eyes to spare them the streak of blue light being imprinted on them. And as she did, she wondered why the veil room had been so empty in the middle of a work day.

The next door Ms Chambers opened was a spacious room, with no particular shape. It seemed to Nova that the room had a slightly Egyptian vibe, the light was just that shade of yellow, and the air was very dry, and the climate was very hot. "This is the legends room," the walls were covered in ruins that even Nova, with her O in ancient ruins class, could not decipher. They looked to be cut into the walls, and were glowing, which is where the yellow light was coming from. In the middle of the room was a pyramid, adding to the Egyptian vibe, it was also covered in ruins.

There was another door in the legends room the room that led to was thin, but went on for a very long time, around the perimeter of the room were bookshelves. Thousands of books were in the room, there wasn't a single spot open for any more. Nova spotted The Tales of Beetle the Bard, and countless other books she had read before.

"Hey Chambers!" A man off in the distance waved at the assistant head once they had re-entered the legends room. Ms Chambers waved back at him through all the hustle and bustle that this room had. There were so many people, all of them circled around something or other, the pyramid was the only thing that was even slightly visible through the mass of bodies.

The legends room didn't have any other rooms leading off from, so the group exited back into the entrance. By the end of the trip they hadn't even made a dent in the list of rooms they had to visit, and Nova's head was spinning from all that she had already seen, there was some really amazing looking stuff. Orientation continued the next day as well, when they went through the clock room, which had a million other doors leading off from it, which resulted in orientation continuing for much longer then you would ever guess if you had just seen the entrance room.


	2. Chapter 2

Nova was officially the youngest person to work in the Department of Mysteries. Or, she would be soon. Usually people started at that particular department once they had had a bit more experience under their belts. Actually, it was entirely thanks to Aunt Lucinda's Unspeakable friend, who had recommended Nova, that she had gotten the internship at all.

Just months before her internship ended, and they took her on as a full time worker, Nova learnt this. She had made friends in many different departments during her internship, particularly in the Department of Magical Healing, that dealt with heath issues and had a few healers there at all times. Sometimes Nova, who hadn't had any actual projects to work on yet, was sent to the other department to get a healer when an experiment went wrong. Like what had just happened. Off in one of the sciences rooms a chemical had leaked, setting off a potion in someone's face.

Nova went flying through the halls to the elevator, then flew through the halls again once it had let out at the right floor - literally flying, she still had that feature on her wheelchair. She made it to the Department of Magical Healing, grabbed the first healer she found, who was her friend Pierce this time, and dragged him through the ministry, telling him what had happened on the way.

He fed the injured Unspeakable a potion that he had grabbed on the way out of the department, then set to work at a cauldron (in the potion making room, sciences section) making another potion needed to heal the unfortunate person. Luckily this potion was quick to make, and was done within twenty minutes, and then spread on the more gruesome parts of the mans face.

His face was visibly getting healing before their eyes until the cuts were more shallow, just scratches, and they took their time healing. At which point someone took over for Pierce spreading the potion on the injured mans face, while he got dittany. To prevent scarring. When his face was fully intact, the man - who said his name was Arnold Pruett - was shipped off to St Mungos to make sure nothing had re-grown wrong.

Nova was walking Pierce out of the department - or he was walking, she couldn't - when he asked her something. "Nova," he started, sounding nervous.

When he didn't say anything again for a while Nova asked, "What?"

He was quiet for a few more minutes then slowly said, "In our department, one of the things we do is develop new cures, medicine and stuff." There was another long pause, then, "We developed something that is supposed to cure paraplegia. It's completely safe, there's no risk to it, - unless you're allergic to something in it, that is - but we still need to find someone to test it on, there aren't many paraplegics in the wizarding world. So... I was wondering... would you?"

"There's no risk?"

"Are you allergic to anything?"

"No."

"Then there's no risk, we just need to make sure it works."

"If you haven't used it yet, how do you know that it will cure paraplegia?"

"Experiments."

Nova never found out what kind of experiments they had used to test this pill and she didn't really care. So once a month, Nova took a pill, and gradually her walking got better. She was having dinner at Aunt Lucinda's house one day when, for the first time in her life, her leg moved. Something that Aunt Lucinda noticed, so she told her about the pills she was taking, she hadn't wanted to before because, if it was possible, Aunt Lucinda was sadder that Nova was in a wheelchair then Nova herself was.

"Oh my God! Really? Good luck, sweetie!" she looked so excited.

Then, November 1st, the day after Halloween, Nova got an owl from the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement telling her that Sirius Black was in Azkaban for killing thirteen muggles and one wizard, (Peter Pettigrew) and selling out James and Lily to Voldemort.

Nova knew that there was no way Sirius would sell them out to Voldemort, or kill those muggles. Sirius was the only family member, besides Aunt Lucinda, that Nova and her brother had grown up with. They had gone to Hogwarts around the same time, only a few years apart. Anyone who knew him would tell you, Sirius Black could not have killed those people. Peter was one of his best friends for Gods sake! Sirius just was not the sort of person to sell out, or kill, his friends like that.

At Hogwarts Nova had been friends with the Marauders, except for Peter, who she didn't like as he didn't appear to have a spine. But she wondered how all those muggles, and Peter, died. They didn't just drop dead. And Lily and James, if Sirius didn't rat them out, then who did? She had known Lily too, they hadn't seen each other much lately, as she, James, and Harry were in hiding, but they had been best friends while they were at Hogwarts.

Later that day she got an owl from Dumbledore, he said that Sirius wasn't getting a trial, they were sending him straight to Azkaban. He also said that Harry would be staying at some relatives of his mother, and not to worry, he was safe.

One of the many emotions Nova was feeling was fury, she was pissed off and was had to do something about all this. She went to see Crouch about it that minute. Or she tried to, but people don't tend to open their doors to the angered relatives of people who they locked up as criminals. Or, not at four in the morning anyway. She caught up to him as he went to work the next day.

"How _dare_ you imprison Sirius without a trial?! What proof do you have that he even did it!?"

Crouch sighed, "Miss Morency, thirteen muggles and one wizard were killed. The street exploded, and he was the Potters secret keeper, he was the only one who could have done it."

"That is completely idiotic! How do you even know he was their secret keeper!? And just because he was the only one on that street once you lot hauled your asses over, he _must_ have done it!?"

Nova continued to argue with Crouch, but he shook her off eventually. He didn't change his mind easily. Apparently once Crouch made a decision, it wouldn't be that easy to get him to change his mind.

But life went on, even when you didn't want it to at the moment. Days passed, Lily and James's funeral was held, Crouches own son was arrested for being a deatheater, along with the LeStranges, among other people, but Nova was particularly interested to see that her second cousin had finally been arrested, and wondered why it had taken the ministry so long to realise that a person who was so obviously a deatheater, was in fact a deatheater. Novas internship also ended, and her employment began.

Her first project was in the Hall of Prophesy, recording the prophesies of seers all over Europe. Her only companions in that room were Maggie and Hugo, the red headed woman and the humpbacked man who had gotten their internships at the same time as Nova. Working in the hall of prophesy was mind numbing work and tended to get people depressed, which is why the only people who would work there were people who had just finished their internships and didn't get any say in the jobs they got.

There hadn't been workers in there for months, the prophesies had really stacked up. A lot of them predicted certain doom, or the only way to escape this certain doom. Each escape getting less and less likely as they made their way through all the prophesies to be recorded. Nova was starting to doubt she would get to any interesting jobs before she ended up insane or clinically depressed.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N - So it turns out I already had this written, I finished it right before I left for Edmonton a while ago. And I mean like... 3 hours before we left... And I hadn't started packing yet, nice huh? I didn't post it because I wanted to check it over and there wasn't time... Then I forgot about it. =D

**Disclaimer/Claimer are on my homepage.**

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Azkaban is a depressing place, mused Nova. She could finally visit Sirius, she was on the way to his cell, going through blocks of cells full of delusional convicts that were muttering to some unseen person. If it were possible, Nova thought the dementors looked almost happy here. A happy dementor could not be good.

Nova was almost afraid to see what Sirius looked like after so many weeks, whether he was as delusional as the other inmates yet. If he was, Nova thought, it almost would have been better not to see him. The dementor glided along corridor after corridor, staircase after staircase until, on the top floor in the maximum guard section he gestured to a cell, then glided away to terrorize one of the moaning convicts.

"Hey," Nova noted happily that Sirius looked nowhere near as delusional as the other people there.

"Hello, what brings you here?" he rasped. His voice sounded like he hadn't talked since he had been in Azkaban, which he probably hadn't.

Nova snorted, "Oh, nothing in particular, just visiting a bonehead relative who got himself locked up."

"Hey!" There was a pause, while they both tried to think of where to start. Sirius got there first, "I didn't do it, ya know."

There was another slight pause, "I know. But who did."

"Peter Pettigrew." he snarled, with a look of extreme dislike on his face.

"Pettigrew! That little worm!? How is that possible, he has no spine!"

"Exactly," when Nova shot him a confused look he went on, "It made it much easier for him to sell them out without feeling guilty, apparently."

"So why does everyone think he's dead? Someone must have seen him."

Sirius snorted, "He's an animagus, little rat cut off his finger then transformed, ran into the sewers, where he belongs."

Another pause then, "Where's Remus?"

"Remus is off battling with Umbridge, trying to get in at some point. She doesn't want to let a werewolf in Azkaban. He wrote me a letter," he held it up.

"Ah," yet another pause, "I've talked to Crouch, he won't change his mind and give you a trial yet, me, Cepheus, and Aunt Lucinda are taking it in shifts to bug him about it." Sirius smiled. "Frank and Alice don't believe you did it either, you should have seen Crouch's face when they joined us. He looked about ready to pull out his hair."

"What happened to Harry?"

"He's being raised by some of Lily's relatives. I think it must be Petunia and her husband."

After which the topic got decidedly lighter, there was enough gloom and doom at the moment with Sirius in Azkaban and Voldemort still goin' strong, thank you very much.

"I wonder what Crouch would look like bald," Nova idly wondered. Sirius laughed, and continued on with the topic. Eventually moving to what he could look like as a lawn gnome. They continued making fun of Crouch until the dementor came back and got Nova to leave.

She was on the next floor, making her way out the building when she heard a cackle, "Well, look who it is," mused Bellatrix. "Visiting my cousin, are ya?" she laughed.

Nova nodded, "You had any visitors," she asked, already knowing the answer.

"Actually, no I haven't."

"Shocker," said Nova shortly, then rolled away.

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Some days later, Nova was having lunch with her brother, reporting their progress on Crouch, which, as it turned out was none. Unless a record for shortest time in the ministry before security was called counted. He could only get security to escort Nova and Aunt Lucinda out of the department, as they were both ministry workers themselves.

But, "You know last week right when I just got to the ministry Crouch was in his office, he called security before I could even step into the room. Apparently they just have someone from security follow him around at all times now."

"Damn, he got a body guard?" Cepheus nodded, "Ah well, nice job on though, that has to be a record."

"Yeah, 'cause _that's _how I wanted to be known." That's when waitress came with Nova's red tea, and Cepheus's coffee, "You should try some coffee, it's good." said Cepheus once the waitress was gone.

"I _have_ tried it, vile stuff. Taste's horrible. Don't know how you can drink it."

"If it doesn't taste good then why do so many people drink it, smarty?"

Nova looked around the muggle coffee shop they were in, "I do not see one person drinking coffee."

Cepheus cleared his throat, then when she didn't take then hint, he said, "I'm drinking coffee."

"Yeah, well, are you sure you're really human? 'Cause I don't think you are, kid."

"What do you mean kid? I'm older then you!" he thought for a minute, "And of course I'm human!"

"You'd really think you say that before saying that you're older then me, you need to sort out you priorities, kid."

And lunch passed more sibling bickering, fit for five year old children. After lunch, both aforementioned siblings made their way back to work. Nova to the Department of Mysteries, and Cepheus to a popular muggle restaurant where he was head chef. Nova was taking the elevator, when the doors opened to admit Mr Crouch, too immersed in a letter he was holding to notice one of the many people he now had to avoid at all costs.

The doors slid closed. "Why hello, Mr Crouch."

Mr Crouch's head snapped up and he spun around. He saw Nova beaming at him and swore under his breath. The turned around and started jabbing his finger at the button for the floor they were on.

"Are you planning on giving Sirius a trial yet?"

"No, Miss Morency, I am not, we are rather more preoccupied with catching the rest of them, besides, we know he did it."

"And yet you give Bellatrix LeStrange and her husband a trial! And your son, there was much more evidence against him then there is against Sirius!"

And the elevator doors opened, Mr Crouch shot out and Nova immediately lost him in the swarm of bodies on the ministries busiest floor.


	4. Chapter 4

It's been a while since I've posted anything, besides the one shot... I have writers block, sorry. Or I did... Untill 2 in the morning then I had to stay up till 6 writing... =( I'm so sleep deprived. XP Yeah, so I might not post anything for a while.

Anyway, this story was really supposed to be more focused on what they do in the Department of Mysteries, because I really find that really interesting... And it's supposed to be following war events, and a little stuff about her mother... Just in one chapter cause she's a bitch. But this chapter really turned out focused on the Department of Mysteries and I didn't think it was gunna... O.o

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The Department of Mysteries has a strange hierarchy. On the bottom are the interns, who mostly try and learn their way around the department without getting lost, blowing up anything, or otherwise messing up a project, they fail more often then you'd think. Maggie, the red headed woman ran afoul of a certain noise sensitive project when she accidentally blew up a door. She's in one of the long-term wards at St Mungos.

Above them are the lowest actual members of the departments, the Freshmen. They handled the Hall of Prophesy and odd-jobs, easy things that anyone could do. It was very rare for one of them to have a project lasting longer then a week of so, after the Hall of Prophesy records of course.

Next were the actual workers, the Sophomores. The naming scheme had been set by the fourth Head of Department, Sage Gliori, a muggle-born. The Sophomores were specialists, and worked in one section for months at a time, slowly getting good at each brand of magic used there, if you were really unlucky, or not particularly talented, you could get stuck there for the rest of your career as an Unspeakable. The Sophomores did the ground work on the projects that weren't too complex.

Next was the Juniors, on their way to getting into the upper ranks of the Unspeakables. They act like foremen, overseeing the projects, though they don't have much - if any - authority over the higher ranking Unspeakables.

The next of which was, of course, the Seniors, who (after a two month training course, then an exam) are very well versed in the workings of magic used in the Department of Mysteries, and did the more complex things that the Sophomores couldn't handle.

Then there are those up there at the top, the Veterans. They handle major crisis's, or fill in for the Seniors when there isn't a crisis. One is stationed in each room, except for the locked room. There are many more in there, they are the only ones trusted enough to work in that room, as things can go very badly wrong. Most of them looked distinctly battle worn despite never having been in a war, almost all of them have major scarring. The only people above them is the Head of Department, and their assistant(s).

Nova and Hugo, the humpbacked man, are now Freshmen, and the only ones working in the Hall of Prophesy, Maggie having just quit. Nova walked over to put the newly recorded prophesy in it's place, then put a select few curses on it to stop anyone but the people involved in the prophesy touching it. Which curses were put on it was really up to the Unspeakable, other then a few mandatory ones.

Several times Nova had seen Hugo, while he was angry, vent by putting every curse known to man - or to him, at least - on a prophesy he was setting in it's place. Having finished with the curses, Nova headed back to the room coming of the Hall. The room had filling cabinets from wall to wall, except for a glass cabinet holding prophesies yet to be recorded, and a big machine tracing prophesies being made.

In the middle of the room was a very long maple desk with five or six pensieves on it. Nova walked to the glass cabinet, nodding to a harassed looking Hugo and the amused looking Veteran on the way, and took out a glass phial labelled 667594351. Hopefully they'd get moved to something else soon. Nova dug out the corresponding file from one of the file cabinets, the moved over to one of the pensieves. She tipped the phials contents into the stone basin, then watched as the scene came into view.

It was dusk outside, and the sky was a cloud stained purple. Turning away from the window, Nova recognised the room, it was a room at Hogshead, instantly recognisable to anyone who has been there before. Nova's Aunt Lucinda went there often, she was friends with the barman, and she had gone there often when the kids at Hogwarts had been out in the village for the weekend. Nova met her there.

But today the room was occupied by two other people sitting at the spindly table in the corner of the room. One covered in glittering shawls and necklaces, with thick glasses that magnified her eyes and a mess of frizzy brown hair. Nova knew her from Hogwarts, she had been a proud little girl, always insisting that she had inherited her grandmothers - or something like that - gift. Though being a Ravenclaw she hadn't had much to do with her.

Across the table from Sybil Trelawney was Albus Dumbledore, who hadn't really changed much since Nova went to Hogwarts. He still had the long hair, the ends of which were tucked into his belt, and his half-moon glasses, and he still had such an obviously wizard-like appearance. He was looking over a paper on a clipboard. Nova looked down at her own file and saw that it was Dumbledores memory.

She walked over to him and looked down at his paper as well, it looked like an application, unless Nova was very much mistaken, Trelawney was applying for a teaching job at Hogwarts. Probably Divination as she hadn't seemed to be more then average at any subject. Nova went back to examining her own sheet, and as she did so, Dumbledore looked up from his.

He looked at Sybil over his glasses, "why do you think you would be a good Divination teacher," got it in one, Nova thought.

"Well Headmaster, I have inherited my great-grandmothers gift of the second sight, it usually skips three generations," Sybil answered in a mystical kind of voice, obviously meant to impress.

"I see," said Dumbledore slowly.

There was a pause while Dumbledore wrote on his sheet, then Trelawney started talking a harsh, hoarse voice, her eyes looked like they were about to roll back in her head, she looked like she was about to have some kind of seizure.

"_The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches...  
__born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies...  
__and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not...  
__and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives...  
__the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies..."_

"They always went into some kind of trance," said Nova, unheard by anyone else in the room. Her favourite had been a big muscular man with no neck and a deep booming voice talking like a mouse on some cartoon, high-pitched and squeaky. She had watched it seven times before getting told off to get back to work. She replayed the prediction, then went up to Sybil and did a complicated little spell. I doubt whether anyone who hasn't worked in the Department of Mysteries knows it.

She put her wand just in front of Sybil's mouth, as the words flowed out, a kind of smoke, or mist built up at the wand tip, until the end of the prediction, by which time a small cloud had built up.

Nova backed away slowly, the cloud trailing even slower after her. Then she grabbed a small crystal orb from her pocket, pressed her wand tip to the center, doing another spell, and watched as the mist slowly swirled in. She once again marvelled at how so much mist could fit into something so small. She left the pensieve, orb in hand, but continued to watch the scene playing on the top of the basin, though not going in this time.

Who did she know that was born at the end of July? She couldn't think of anyone but it continued to bug her as she took out her wand and carved the plate that would go under the prophesy. Then as she walked over and put the new prophesy in it's place. Then as she put the curses on it. She went back to the pensieve, to put the memory in the storage room for recorded memories. As she leant over the basin, Trelawney finished her prediction, and the door whipped open. Snape had evidently been listening at the door...

She was still thinking about it when Ms Chambers, the assistant to the head of the department, came in with four very timid looking people. "This lot's just finished their internship," she told the room, "You two will be moving on to other things, they're taking over the Hall of Prophesy." As she said it, an alert sounded from the machine in the corner. Another prophesy had been made.

"Hugo, if you'll just take them where the alert said, Nova, when they get back you can tell them how to record them." Hugo and Nova nodded then Hugo, followed by the four new freshmen, left the room to go dissaperate.

"Nova, they need another set of hands in the Universe room, I trust you can do the bubblehead charm?"

"Why would I need the bubble-head charm?"

"Oh, I just thought you might like to breathe…"


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N-**Sorry it took so long to update; I blame writers block & summer laziness... Anyone who catches the armaggedon referance gets a... uhm... hat?

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"Yes, but why would I need the bubblehead charm?"

"Well, I suppose you wouldn't _need_ it. Just if you were planning on breathing at all while you're in there..."

Nova was about to go into the Universe room to start her first actual project, no one ever seemed to count the Hall of Prophesy recording as a project...

There were very few rooms interns weren't allowed into. Such as the locked room that only Veterans and above were allowed in, and another was the Universe room. The room that Nova was now being told to enter.

Ms Chambers cast the bubblehead charm on herself, Nova followed suit. They were in a small square stone room. There were doors on two opposite ends of the room, other then that the only thing in the room was a yellow and black poster titled **CAUTION** under which, it read: **Do ****not**** open both doors at once & be sure to cast the bubblehead charm on yourself before entering the Universe room. This room is here to be an air lock.**

Ms Chambers looked toward Nova, "Ready?" she asked. Nova nodded. Ms Chamber opened the door, it didn't look like there was a room beyond the door, it looked more like just a space. There didn't appear to be a floor, nor a ceiling, nor walls. There were tiny pin pricks of light, but the main light source came from something quite far away that look suspiciously like the Sun.

"They look just like real stars..." Nova said, in awe.

"They _are_ real stars." Ms Chambers walked through the open door. Nova wheeled herself in after her then closed the door, cutting off the last of the torchlight. Turns out the floor was glass, or it was more like a dock then a floor. The edges of the glass where marked in bright yellow glow-in-the-dark paint.

Ms Chambers led Nova towards a group of people around a table and a row of cork boards, the only things at ground level. Some of them were hard to see in their black Unspeakable robes as the background was so dark.

The cork boards, as it turned out, had math equations on them. "These equations have to do with the atmosphere in the room. There has to be certain levels of certain gases in the right place or the stars won't accurately show what the actual stars go through, and then there's really no point in having this room. These are basically a model of where the stars will be in about fifty years, if some asteroid decides it's a good idea to crash into earth we want to know about it _before_ it happens, thank you very much," the Veteran in the Universe room explained quickly.

"So... what am i supposed to do?"

"Every month or two we send someone up to make sure everything's going right, your wheelchair flies, right?" Nova nodded, "Good, you're going to take this, go up to some of the stars, the Sun, the Moon, and the planets, and it's going to measure what the chemical levels are at. It's much more convenient for you to go up there then to have to worry about someone falling off their broom." She talked much too quickly, it was unnerving.

"What happens if I do fall... ?"

"We'll find you eventually. You remember Harold, the Veteran whose in the Hall of Prophesy right now?" Nova mhmm-ed, "He got lost in this room a few years ago. Took us a month to find him!" she chuckled. "Wasn't that when he got that phobia? What's it called? A fear of open spaces..."

"If there isn't anything else you need, I'll be going." interjected Ms Chambers.

"Ah, thank you for your help ma'am," Ms Chamber went out the door, once it had closed the Veteran continued briskly, "You can start with Saturn."

There were no problems with Saturn, or any of the stars or other planets. It was pretty much Novas designated job to check the atmosphere in the Universe room until she was promoted to a Sophmore, when she spent most of her time working in the Legends room, then in the Clocks room, then in the veil room, etc, going through the typical Sophmore working course of learning more about each room by working in them.

Mr Crouch continued to be an arrogant little man, refusing to believe that Sirius was innocent, Cepheus got permanently banned from the Ministry of Magic as Mr Crouch was just hairs away from cursing him. Nova's little sister Andromeda, the reason her and Cepheus got kicked out of the house, was all grown up and got a job as a ministry intern. Then quit. She considered being an heiress a job.

As for Voldemort, no one mentioned or thought about him if they could help it. There was a terrible blow to the ministry and the wizarding world when an Auror and his wife were tortured to insanity about the whereabouts of Voldemort. But nothing happened after and the deatheaters were slowly being rounded up, anyone with any connection to anything dark was brought in for questioning. Mr Borgin very narrowly avoided being accused of being a deatheater, but the absense of the dark mark was hard to explain. _He_ got a trial, you see.

The wizarding world was learning to relax.

The first time Voldemort was mentioned again, to Nova at least, was nearly a decade later. She was out to lunch with some of her ministry friends. By this time she could walk, and was celebrating this by going to very muggle restaurants and not having to use the go-through-walls feature on her chair to sneak in. It doesn't sound like much but she was ecstatic, she had only gotten out of the wheel chair a few years ago. Some things are very hard to heal, and her friends wouldn't let her ditch the chair until they were sure she would be okay without it. She had been celebrating for two years straight.

It was a perfectly enjoyable lunch, until Kingsley Shacklebolt bounded into the restaurant towards their table. "Hey, Kingsley!" There were greetings all round.

He waved the bewildered waitress away, "Pierce is being sent to Azkaban."

"WHAT!?!"-'s all round.

"He was trying to torture some information out of some Unspeakable. He's obviously imperioused, but none of the other Aurors know him so they can't tell."

"Poor Pierce! How can we hel--!" Nova panicked, she was cut off.

"Which Unspeakable was it!? Are they okay!?!" Hugo panicked more.

"It was apparently Arnold Pruett."

"He just got back last year, he was that guy who had a potion explode in his face..." said Hugo, who really had an amazing memory for these things.

"I heard he's going to be alright eventually. He's in St Mungos though."

"God... It's too much like what happened to Frank and Alice..." moaned a woman from Magical Maintenance.

"Well at least Voldemort isn't behind this one..." reasoned someone else.

"I guess. But he said Pierce was asking about how to make a philosophers stone. Even if it's not Voldemort, if they're ready to imperious and torture people, it can't be good if they get it..." Kingsley trailed off.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N- **Sorry about the serious lack of posting anything. I finished this a little while ago then completely forgot about it... -.-; heh. But I'm all happy cause I'ce finally started writing this one-shot. It's way over due.... I'm talking like... 2-3 years here people! XP lol, sorry, done rambling now....

Regular disclaimer on my homepage, but information on the philosophers stone was referanced from '_Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone'_ by JK Rowling and '_Fantasy Encyclopedia' _by Judy Allen.

* * *

_"The Philosophers stone is a stone made through alchemy that can turn common metals into the purest of gold and can be used to create the Elixir of Life, which will make the drinker immortal. The only record of a philosophers stone being made was in 1326 by Nicolas Flammel who last year celebrated his 665th birthday. The directions on how to make the stone have since been lost."_

Nova and Kingsley scoured the library in the ministry for any further mention of the Philosophers stone.

_"In the mid 1500's an Englishman named Dr John Dee allegedly found instructions on how to make a philosophers stone, he memorized them then burnt the page to stop it from falling into the wrong hands. He then forgot the instructions, and though he claimed to have turned metal into gold once, he died poor."_

And then there was no further mention of Nicolas Flammel, the Philosophers stone, or even John Dee, though they looked through every alchemy book. They decided there was nothing for it and aparated to a little French villa that Flammel was rumoured to have lived near.

The villa was surrounded by forest. There was a metal sign beside the entrance that said something in French they couldn't understand, but there was an arrow pointing to the left. They went inside and headed to the left where they saw a short, bald, French man with a walrus moustache behind a desk. He was wearing a suit and looked very professional.

They walked toward the mahogany desk. "Can you speak French?" Nova whispered. Kingsley shook his head no. But the French man had apparently heard her whisper and looked up.

"Bonjour!" he said brightly.

Nova looked towards Kingsley and raised an eyebrow. He shook his head again, to tell her that _he _wasn't about to say anything. Nova scowled at him, then walked a little toward the desk, thinking back to Elementary school, furious at herself for not paying attention in French class. "Um... Anglais?" she asked.

"Oui, oui!" The man nodded energetically.

"You speak English?" she asked. He nodded yet again. "Oh... Okay, we're looking for a man named Nicolas Flammel who was rumoured to have lived near here, have you seen him recently?"

"Non, I theenk 'e may 'ave moved..." the man answered slowly, in a thick French accent.

"Thank you," Nova said, and started to walk away.

But the receptionist, not wanting to let a potential customer slip away, said, "'Ould you and your boyfriend like to rent a room while you are looking for thees Flammel man?"

Kingsley snorted, and Nova shook her head. There was a pause then, "And he is _not_ my boyfriend." insert bone chilling glare *here*.

Then they left.

They walked down a path through the woods for several minutes then Kingsley took out his wand, "Homenum revlio," there was another pause then, "There are two people over that way," he said, pointing to the South. They walked over that way for a good half hour, occasionally re-doing the homenum revlio spell to make sure they were headed in the right direction.

They made it to a wooden cabin in the middle of the forest, it was bigger then Hagrids, but still small. "Your turn," Nova said to Kingsley, who scowled at her while she smiled back cheekily.

He knocked on the door. After a pause the door was opened by a man who was obviously a wizard, judging from his clothes, and had a beard long enough to rival Dumbledores. "Hn?" he grunted.

"Ah... Hello, I'm Kingsley Shacklebolt and this is Cassanova Morency," he pointed back to Nova, who nodded, "We're looking for someone named Nicolas Flammel, we're wondering if you may have seen him."

"That's me." said the man. He also had a French accent, though not as thick as the receptionists.

Kingsley looked bewildered, the man was middle aged, he had expected Flammel to be ancient. When Kingsley didn't speak, Nova stepped forward, "We wanted to talk to you about the Philosophers stone,"

"Who are you," Flammel asked suspiciously.

"Kingsley Shacklebolt and Cassanova Morency." Kingsley repeated.

"We work for the ministry, Auror and Unspeakable departments. We don't want to know how to _make_ the stone, or anything like that, we just have a few concerns," Nova added.

"Nick? Nick, who is it?" called a woman from inside.

He sighed, "Might as well come in for a bit." he stood aside and waited for them to walk in. "This is my wife, Perenelle. Honey, these are some people from the ministry who say they have some _concerns,_" he rolled his eyes.

"We're not here to represent the ministry, we just wanted to ask you some things..." Nova said, slowly.

"Shoot," he said. For someone as ancient as him, he talked sort of like a teenager.

"Well we're basically worried someone may go after the stone... A friends of ours was imperioused and trying to find out instructions on how to make one, we're worried the person who imperioused him may go after your stone." Kingsley explained.

"The stone is perfectly safe, it was moved out of Gringotts right before the break in. I've entrusted it with an old friend, he's protected it. Is that it?" Flammel was brisk and it seemed like he wanted nothing more then for them to leave.

Pause. Then, "Oh... I guess so... Happy Halloween," Nova said uncertainly. They left, "It seems kind of pointless for us to go there now, we only stayed for about five minutes..." they walked into the forest before apparating back.

"I thought he'd be a lot... older," said Kingsley.

"Well what's the point of eternal life without eternal youth?" replied Nova. "I know if I were immortal I wouldn't want to be some old bag for thousands of years."

Kingsley snorted again, "Thank God you're not immortal. I'd be afraid to leave my house," he joked.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Nova asked, pretending to be more offended.

"It means that you're really... eccentric... sometimes..."

Nova scoffed, then, some minutes of walking later she said, "I think we can apparate back to the ministry now." They apparated back and were in the Atrium at the ministry.

The Atrium was more or less abandoned as everyone was either already at work or wasn't coming in that day. "Have you seen anyone from the Department for the Protection of Magical Creatures?" another ministry worker asked as he ran by.

They both shook their heads, "Where's the fire?" asked Nova.

"Hogwarts," he said, "A troll got into the school on Halloween, it was probably just a prank," he turned around in the doorway for a second. "It's gone but we need to get some people started on damage control."

* * *

Uh, and the messed up spelling on some of the words was me attempting a french accent... -.-; And failing miserably. Sorry again! And sorry for the short chapter!!! Gah! Too many sorrys! TT_TT


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N -** So apparently I've had this done for over a month and forgot about it... Opps... So double update today.

Disclaimer on my homepage, but an exert was taken from Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone. (I refuse to say Sorcerers Stone)

* * *

They both shook their heads, "Where's the fire?" asked Nova.

"Hogwarts," he said, "A troll got into the school on Halloween, it was probably just a prank," he turned around in the doorway for a second. "It's gone but we need to get some people started on damage control."

The man ran off again, in search of someone from the Department for the Protection of Magical Creatures.

"I hope everyone is alright..." Nova mumbled.

After Nova and Pierce had gotten back from lunch, Novas Healer friend, Pierce, came up to her. She was still with Kingsley, now they were heading back to their respective departments.

"I finally got it! I have officially collected, every single wizard card ever made!" He jumped for joy, because that's just how he rolls.

"You finally got Circe?"

"Oh, no. I got Dumbledore..."

Nova's eyes widened, "You _just _got Dumbledore? That's practically the most common one!"

Pierce stared at her for a minute. Then finally mumbled, "Kill joy," under his breath. Kingsley stood in the corner and lamented at the lack of sensible people other then himself in the elevator.

Pierce got off on his floor, then Nova sighed and leaned against the wall. Pierce was great n' all, but he gave her headaches. He had practically been bouncing off the walls once he stopped pretending to be sad. As she leaned against the wall, she noticed something move on the floor, which upon further inspection turned out to be the picture on Pierce's chocolate frog card doing the robot.

Nova bent over and picked it up, "He left his card..." She stared at the picture of Dumbledore and got lost in thought about Hogwarts and the good times back there, things were harder nowadays, you actually had to do work now.

Eventually, she turned over the card and read it, for something to do.

_Albus Dumbledore, currently Headmaster of Hogwarts._

_Considered by many the greatest wizard of modern_

_times, Dumbledore is particularly famous for his _

_defeat of the dark wizard Grindewald in 1945,_

_for the discovery of the twelve uses of dragon's _

_blood and his work on alchemy with..._

"…his partner, Nicholas Flammel..." Nova read the last part aloud.

"What's that?" asked Kingsley, who apparently had not heard.

Nova re-read the last line, "So, if Dumbledore knows Flammel then..."

"D'you think he would have left the stone with him?"

"After all, how many other friends would a six hundred year old guy who lives in the middle of a forest have?"

"Wait, what if the troll had to do with the Philosophers Stone?"

"Ya think?" There was further conversation, which eventually led to Nova and Kingsley going to visit Dumbledore. After work because they had already skipped part of the morning and their bosses would kick their asses if they left again.

Three hours later, they were standing in front of the statue to Dumbledores office berating themselves for not finding out the password first. "Flammel," "Grindewald," "Transfiguration," "Aberforth," and "Phoenix," were just some of the possibilities they had passed by the statue, only to be ignored.

"Argh," Nova growled, out of frustration and kicked the statue.

It snapped to life, "Now, no need for _that_, lil missy," Nova's eye twitched.

Oh, she'd show him 'lil missy'. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on if you're the statue or Nova, McGonagull chose that moment to appear. The statue jumped out of the way for the deputy headmistress making her way down the stairs.

What are you two doing here? "_I_ wanted to talk to Dumbledore, _she_," Kingsley nodded his head toward Nova, "wanted to beat up the statue."

Nova scowled, "Well if it wasn't such a smart ass," she mumbled.

"You can go up and see the headmaster now," McGonagull chuckled. Oh my God, it's a miracle.

The two of them walked up the staircase. Or, they started to, then it started spinning up. Nova almost fell off. They got to the top and knocked on the door, "enter." Dumbledore called from inside.

"Sir, we had some questions," Nova started, as they walked in.

"What about? Someone from the ministry has already been here to deal with the troll and such."

Nova descended into silence, not knowing how to start. So Kingsley did instead, "We guessed that Flammel may have hid the philosophers stone here and that the troll may have been connected."

"We just wanted to make sure the stone is safe, and protected well," Nova picked up.

Dumbledore paused, then decided to trust them, just the barest amount. "I assure you the stone is _very_ well protected," Nova knew it was just because he trusted Kingsley that he told them. Despite that trust, his tone was crisp and looked on his guard. Nova went back into silence.

"So, I should assume you would reject any extra protection from the ministry?"

Dumbledore smiled, "Yes," he was still on his guard, and after a little conversation Nova and Kingsley left, knowing that he wouldn't tell them anything else.

Dumbledore wasn't going to tell them anything else, so they decided to trust him and not to pry in. Or, Nova decided not to pry, Kingsley's all honourable and stuff so it was never an issue for him. They let it go, and trusted the stone would be fine.

They were right, by the end of the year the news was widespread that the stone was going to be destroyed. They even got a letter from Nicolas Flammel, he had sent the letter to the England Ministry of Magic to be delivered to the 'black, bald, auror guy', and the 'unspeakable girl with the weird black and white hair'.

It started as so:

_Hello again,_

_This is Nicolas Flammel, you came to my house in France a year ago asking about the Philosophers stone. For reasons I don't really feel like telling you, the stone will be destroyed. Rest assured, it is gone, no evil overlord or what have you, is going to get it. _

_That being said, my wife Perenelle and I are going to die soon. I'm trusting you to pass on the other enclosed letters to someone in an appropriate department. You owe me for telling you children anything, try and get them through quickly._

_-Nicolas Flammel._

"Well aren't we snarky..." Nova was somewhat lost for words, didn't know what to think of that. They passed on other letters to the highest ranking officials they knew in the respective departments. Nova passed one of the letters on to the Head of the Department of Mysteries, Ms Chambers. By the time she was doing that, she had thought of something odd about her own letter.

"Why didn't he just mail letters directly to the head of departments? He was a really important person, I'm sure they'd do whatever it was he wanted without the extra person asking about it."

Ms Chambers mulled it over. She decided to trust Nova with an extra piece of information. "A while ago Flammel had a falling out with the Minister."

"Fudge?"

"Yeah, it was right after Voldemort fell. The ministry was going broke trying to rebuild the wizarding world and re-establish trust with people. Fudge asked Flammel for the stone so the ministry could get gold, so they'd have more resources, ya know?"

"Oh, I imagine Flammel took that well," Nova scoffed, Flammel was pretty obnoxious and he didn't really strike her as the kind of person to help out Fudge.

"No, he didn't." Ms Chamber sighed. "Fudge was quite persistent for a while. He had to give up eventually but now Flammel is in the Ministers bad books so he needs help getting stuff done from our Ministry."

There were rumours that the stone was being destroyed because Voldemort had tried to steal it, but these things weren't exactly common knowledge, so people who didn't know anyone at Hogwarts had to trust newspapers. The Daily Prophet had an article about it, but it was written by Rita Skeeter, so it was anyones guess how accurate it was. The Quibbler also took a one page break from gnargles to write about Voldemort and the Stone.

But then again, the Quibbler wasn't entirely dependable either. It was hard to find out what was going on. Nova put in a request to go see Sirius, fill him in about what was supposedly happening at Hogwarts. And see if he was still sane. On the few visits Nova had been allowed since he got put in there, he seemed to be keeping his sanity alright.

Though, he _was_ getting more and more sullen looking every time, but years in Azkaban will do that to you. Even visiting was draining.


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N - **Disclaimer on my homepage. However, right before the next little line thing (see below) there is a death note referance. (Gold star for anyone who catches it. lol) there is also a referance to Power Rangers and Ghost Busters near the end of the chapter.

* * *

By the time Nova's request to visit Sirius had gone through and she was allowed to go for an hour visit, a lot of time had gone by. Voldemort and the stone was no longer the latest Hogwarts scandal. The Flammel's settled their affairs and let themselves die. Kids letters home to their parents were the only way to tell what was really going on at Hogwarts.

The new worry over there had been that the Chamber of Secrets had been opened. But that school year had come and gone by now. It was August already, and parents buried the letters about the Chamber of Secrets at the bottom of drawers and boxes and what have you. They tried to forget about the people who were petrified, and that even ghosts hadn't been safe, and about the girl who had almost died.

They chose to try and forget all that, and just keep their fingers crossed that this year would be perfectly normal, and that their children wouldn't be in danger again. Nova was readying herself to go to Azkaban to visit Sirius when the day finally came. She noticed the minister standing in one of the halls with a dementor.

He was drenched and upon further inspection, was not talking to himself, or the dementor, but another man standing next to them. Nova didn't have a habit of eavesdropping, but the words Azkaban, then Sirius Black, rather caught her attention. Nova continued to listen in unobtrusively, pretending to be waiting for some cubicle worker to finish their work.

"Everything seems to be in order at Azkaban," Fudge finished. Apparently he had had to go for a yearly assessment or something like that. As the Dementor was gliding away, Fudge started up a more non-professional conversation with the other man, who by the way had a mullet. "D'you remember Sirius Black?" This is about the point where Nova had started listening in.

The other man nodded, acknowledging he had heard of the supposed mass murderer. "I passed his cell today,"

"I trust Azkaban has taken it's toll on him," the man half laughed, it sounded like he hoped Sirius was a basket case raving on about nonsense.

"No, well yes I suppose. He looks very grim, and... haunted." Fudge started, "But he's perfectly sane. When I passed by he saw I had the paper and asked if he could have it, said he missed doing the cross words."

The mullet looked at Fudge weirdly, "So you gave him your paper?"

Fudge chuckled, "What's he going to do, commit suicide by pen?"

* * *

"Hey there," Nova greeted Sirius when she finally got to his cell. He was lying on his stomach on the floor, going through the paper.

He looked up, "Nova! How nice to see you again," he said, almost sarcastically. Last time she had seen him he had responded to her hello with a surprised 'what are you doing here,' to which _she _responded sarcastically, 'how very nice to see you again Nova, thanks for visiting despite the creepy rotting guards.' Eye roll included.

After some small talk, she got into why she had come to visit in the first place, "when I originally put in the request to visit you, there was some trouble at Hogwarts I thought you might be interested in," Sirius looked slightly more alert, but other then that he remained unmoved. "Two years ago, me and Kingsley were pretty sure that the philosophers stone was at Hogwarts.

"We went to visit Flammel, to ask about the stone, around Halloween. Then we found out a troll had broken into Hogwarts and thought maybe that's where it was hidden because Flammel had said that he left it with a friend. Dumbledore didn't really tell us anything, then there was nothing more we could do."

"So that was it, some trouble two years ago?"

Nova hesitated, then continued, "No, there was a rumour that the chamber of secrets had been opened, d'you remember the old legend?" Sirius snorted and nodded, when they were in school one of the Slytherins had pulled a prank that it had been opened to scare all the muggle borns. "Some of the students were petrified, _hell_, even Nearly Headless Nick was petrified." Sirius looked alarmed, any normal person would after all, but his eyes were somewhat clouded, like he wasn't all there.

"One of the Weasley's got taken into the Chamber, and another one and the lil' Potter rescued her. Actually, the same Weasley, and Potter, and another Gryffindor, apparently stopped Ol' Voldie from getting the stone."

Across the dismal hall, a former death eater snapped to attention at the partial mention of her old masters name, "Don't you _dare_ disgrace the Dark Lords name you scum," she growled.

Nova was shocked for a second, then replied dismally, "Ah, hello there Bellatrix. So you're not a vegetable yet then? Shame."

Bellatrix let out a single, high pitched laugh, "Ah, don't sound so thrilled cousin!"

Nova stared at her for a moment, making a face, then realised nothing would be accomplished by fighting with her, "_So,_ when did they move miss zombie bride across from you?" Nova asked, rolling her eyes.

Bellatrix's cry of outrage was ignored. She really took offence easily, she _did_ look somewhat zombie like with her sickly skin stretched across her bones and her sunken, hooded eyes.

Nova got back to her apartment a half hour later, having ridden the muggle subway across the city for the hell of it. She collapsed on her couch, still finding it tiring to not be using a wheelchair, and reflected that Sirius had seemed a little detached most of the time she was visiting him. He wasn't all there, but not like he was losing his mind.

No, more like he was... holed up in his thoughts... Sirius had never been one to hold back on people before, Nova thought, snorting.

After the visit to Azkaban, Nova didn't hear anything about Sirius for a long time. All the excitement at Hogwarts was taking up the gossip mill. She didn't hear anything about him; Until, in October, he escaped from Azkaban and Crouch hauled her into his office for an interrogation.

She hadn't heard from him in over a year, and told Crouch so. He was very determined to find her lying and drilled her for three hours. Then Ms Chambers, the head of the Department of Mysteries, sent someone looking for her. Nova was never three hours late to work.

Ms Chambers gave him an earful for abducting one of her Seniors (she had gotten promoted). Over the next year, Nova subscribed to The Daily Prophet and picked up muggle newspapers religiously, looking for any word on her cousins well-being. Though, she reflected, considering the situation he was in, no news was good news.

The papers gave little information, except for occasionally taking a guess about which town he was in or where he was headed, each paper reported different sightings from all across the world. How Sirius was supposed to be travelling across Scotland at the same time he was supposedly traveling across India was beyond Nova. All the good information came from the Hogwarts rumour mill, which these days got all the way to the ministry.

Around Halloween -because something _always_ has to happen on Halloween- word got 'round that Sirius had tried to break into the Gryffindor tower. Luckily all the students were at the feast.

The next rumour floating around was that Sirius had managed to get into Gryffindor tower and was seen standing over a sleeping boy with a knife. The boy had woken up and Sirius had run away, for what reason, no one knew. After all, he had allegedly killed a whole street of people with one spell, five sleeping, disarmed boys wouldn't be a problem. Nova didn't personally believe that one, but there were a lot less believable rumours getting around.

Some of which were even less believable then a crack fan fiction!

Such as the one that said a muggle crime fighting team (the power rangers) teamed up with Sirius to stop a giant marshmallow man from destroying the city. Or maybe it was that the power rangers teamed up with the marshmallow to stop _Sirius_ from destroying the city...


End file.
